U.S. Politics, November 2024: GARBAGE DAY!!

xpost that was in response to table

any time the US economy is discussed in a US politics thread it might be worthwhile to preface it with a trigger warning for table. his own personal economic history and present circumstances appear to be traumatic enough that the entire subject is like poking at a never-healing wound.

xp tim: my point is just that nathan is not connecting the dots in his own thesis that expiration of temporary pandemic benefits can explain biden’s election loss. nathan doesn’t give any direct evidence in favor or against that thesis. in the points 1-2-3-4 that you quoted, the pandemic safety net only appears at the end of point 4. putting aside whether or not 1-2-3-4 is a good account of the economy under biden, it’s just not a good argument for his stated claim. i’m not saying that means pandemic safety net expiry *didn’t* matter. just that nathan’s post shouldn’t change your mind one way or the other. i do think it’s an important question, and hope to see a better analysis of it soon. imo a good analysis would be a direct test, looking at vote swing among voters who were most impacted by the pandemic benefit expirations

yeah I agree with that

It's tempting to want to find something about the Biden administration that we can point to and say "they were insufficiently left wing", and then say that that was the cause of that deterioration, rather than a preferred right-wing talking point like inflationary policies or at least the failure to control inflation. I'd personally find it comforting. But I'm also keen not to allow my own motivated reasoning (to flip back milo's formulation: the left can never fail, but only be failed) to cause me to abandon (or rather, become indifferent to) analytical rigour. And none of that has much to do with how people feel "on the ground".

good post. but tbh pandemic program expiry isn’t even really a left vs right wing thing. a temporary program that expires can be more generous than a permanent program for the same total amount of money spent. it’s perfectly consistent for a socialist to prefer more generous payments during a crisis for a shorter period of time than a smaller level of payments stretched out over a longer period of time. socialists want more money spent, but permanent vs temporary is a separate issue. now obviously once the level of spending is set, extending the program does increase the total level of spending. so ex post it becomes left wing to extend. but ex ante, i think dems probably did the right thing when negotiating the CARES act in 2020 to make the benefits more generous and temporary

lol

Don't vote for any Democrat in 2028 who doesn't repudiate the pardon within 48 hours.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 2, 2024

I tend to think of temporary programs as (all else equal) less left wing because it is more difficult for republicans to reverse permanent spending than to let temporary spending expire

Why 48 hours? Make it 90 minutes, like John Badham’s Nick of Time (1995)

I tend to think of temporary programs as (all else equal) less left wing because it is more difficult for republicans to reverse permanent spending than to let temporary spending expire

― Tim F, Sunday, 1 December 2024 9:09 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

other than to get around institutional constraints using tricks like reconciliation, there’s no reason to pass a temporary program during normal times. it’s only really relevant in a crisis. every other country did temporary programs during covid and many expired without fanfare. in canada our big generous temporary universal program ended in september 2020, was replaced by a series of smaller stingier programs, and trudeau won re-election in september 2021 at which point it had been whittled down to barely anything. also CARES act was passed by dem house republican senate under republican president, so permanent was not on the table

What’s the point of being President if you can’t even take care of your crackhead boy?

this is the best thing biden’s done since dropping out

Amy Carter is still my favourite wayward Presidential offspring. She spent a night with the Butthole Surfers

Democrats doing well in 2022 (with Dobbs fresh, no Trump on the ballot and with Biden still seeming like he didn't need to be in a home) doesn't really mean much about 2024.

'Don't be the party that is thought to have taken things away from your potential voters' isn't a left/right issue or unique to COVID or social welfare - ie what people remember of Biden and student loans is payments restarting. Talking about how Republicans/the Supreme Court blocked more cancellations just doesn't seem to be effective. Programs that expired under Biden get owned by Biden and the Democrats, regardless of the circumstances of how they were initiated or what Biden may have done to cushion the blow (like Obamacare subsidies - healthcare is still ridiculously expensive on the ACA for anything approaching a decent plan, no one feels grateful that they can scratch to afford a plan with a $5000 deductible before it's useful).

'Make it universal and permanent' doesn't really have much to do with Biden or COVID relief generally IMO - it's a larger argument about how all programs (and the 'Democratic agenda' if such a thing exists) should be structured. If we'd gotten a public option in 2009 (or lol single-payer) lots of people don't get thrown off Medicaid (which, as above, then demands you explain to people who lost it how it's actually Republicans' fault).

permanent and generous programs are obviously good. i do think temporary programs in the context of a pandemic are defensible and setting the expiry date is hard ex ante. like, no way trump wasn’t gonna let them expire before november 2020. so then do you have them go all the way to jan 2025? that definitely would’ve been better electorally the way things worked out. but that would’ve made the programs more expensive, and senate dems compromised on a sooner expiry date with more generous payments. (and of course they didn’t know a democrat would win in 2020)

as far as the electoral consequences go, i’m agnostic. i don’t think it’s the kind of thing that can be deduced from first principles and haven’t seen evidence either showing it was important or that it wasn’t

I still hope there is a hell for Joe Lieberman blocking the public option. Worst fucking Democratic VP pick in the modern era, too

every other country did temporary programs during covid and many expired without fanfare.

the difference is those other countries generally have much more significant welfare states than the usa to begin with

Haha yeah I was about to say

with the post i linked, i want to emphasise the part that gets into the flaws with relying on aggregate economic measures and explains how things can be or feel worse for a lot of individuals even though the aggregate measures look ok.

I am not a fan of the hunter pardon

It’s not egregiously corrupt like Bill Clinton’s pardon of Mark Rich, which still makes me shake my head in disbelief

xps the headline argument is proposing a fairly plausible explanation for why people feel worse (though it doesn't need to be the only factor, and it's an explanation that has been proposed by many others) but the focus on reconciling the apparent disconnect between the aggregate measures & the economic well-being data is the really interesting part of the piece

I’m in favor of punishment for gun charges, categorically. I’m aware this is now controversial among most dems who have internalized heller

also almost every other country's incumbents have crashed in elections held over the last 12 months and Trudeau has Biden-esque approval ratings

Is "internalizing Heller" required for not being convinced that prison is called for if you smoke a joint and fill out a 4473?

no one needs a handgun

did he mark “I just smoked a joint” on his paperwork?

Gun owners are pieces of shit, I’m totally with you on that

Poilievre is to Trump as Blair was to Bush, Jr. You’re in for a hell of a shitstorm

He wasn't convicted of "not needing a handgun" nor does his conviction strike a blow against handgun ownership. Unlike Joe Biden and Kamala Harris I am not a fan of putting people in cages for doing drugs!

if you go back and read what people were saying in 2020 when they were passing the pandemic programs, the argument wasn’t centrists saying “let’s pass a generous program that expires in a couple years” and the left arguing “no let’s do a permanent expansion of the welfare state.” it was taken as given that the programs would be temporary and the argument was all about making them more generous

there were also other debates about administration that don’t track to permanent/temporary, like whether benefits should be administered more through unemployment insurance and cash transfers (as in the us and canada) or through employers (ie paying firms not to lay off workers) which is what most european countries did. the fact that european welfare states act as stronger automatic stabilizers (kick in when incomes drop) is part of why those particular choices were made

but it’s a discursive sleight of hand to try argue ex post that they should’ve been permanent all along, and to point to that as a failure because they expired during the subsequent democratic president’s term. if you want to argue that the us should have a more generous welfare state you’ll hear no disagreement from me. it’s just neither here nor there in this particular debate. the original arp and bbb plans had a lot more welfare state stuff in them before they got cut down. what you really want to argue is that they should’ve prioritized longer horizons over the other things that made it into those bills

with the post i linked, i want to emphasise the part that gets into the flaws with relying on aggregate economic measures and explains how things can be or feel worse for a lot of individuals even though the aggregate measures look ok.

― ufo, Monday, 2 December 2024 12:58 AM (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

people on both sides of this argument use individual level data that tracks workers over time. it’s not like everyone else is using aggregate data and nathan is using individual level data. in fact nathan switches halfway through his post, he starts out using individual data to talk about churn and volatility in 2020-21, then he switches to making arguments based on aggregates (interest rates, inflation) and doesn’t show any individual data on outcomes related to pandemic program expiration. many people have looked at this using individual level data over the full period 2020-2024. here’s a recent post that ends up with a more pessimistic view of the biden labor market

This is THE analysis of wages/income under Biden-Powell

TLDR: growth has been... historically weak (this is not normative -- just the numbers)

File under: blog posts that could be papers (and BPEA or someone should really conscript Zach to turn it into a paper) https://t.co/uyBVaf4S0P pic.twitter.com/KBiVJ8Rj1J

— Basil Halperin (@BasilHalperin) November 12, 2024

that also makes the same point about the pandemic stimulus expiring leading to incomes going backwards, but yes, the broad point i wanted to get across was that biden's most left-wing domestic agenda ever doesn't mean anything if a lot of people still end up going backwards, and it was even more foolish for the dems to convince themselves that actually everything was great.

but it’s a discursive sleight of hand to try argue ex post that they should’ve been permanent all along, and to point to that as a failure because they expired during the subsequent democratic president’s term.

i don't really see it as biden's fault in particular (other than he likely should have tried to push manchin more but i really don't know how possible that would have been) but it is something he was going to get the blame for regardless (a major flaw of the us system is how the president will get blamed for congress's failures) because most voters are not going to draw that sort of distinction (and the ones who are are already voting dem) and the dems had no real answer to that, their message was that biden's economy was great!

We have more theories and tools to understand things at a number of levels than ever (than just the broad political, which is the only level I am ever interested in), with more people educated to read, comprehend, and make policy on that stuff.

And yet Donald Trump still wins the presidency. Twice.

heads up y'all: Garbage Day is finally over. the Garbage Years have begun again.

The Hunter Biden pardon _and_ the consultants on Twitter justifying the pardon are a perfect illustration of the current state of the Democratic Party.

I'm confused. Id think the consultants would be horrified.

Hunter: Totally legal and totally cool

i'm curious how many people are prosecuted a year for not admitting you're an addict on the application for a hand gun

the important part is that Biden co-authored the Crime
Bill that had allowed non-violent drug users to suffer in the PIC for decades, in some cases. yet his special little boy gets a pardon. imho, Biden should pardon them all, or accept that his special little boy will have to spend some time in the very system that he has supported for his entire life.

Biden should pardon them all

otm

or accept that his special little boy will have to spend some time in the very system that he has supported for his entire life.

On the a very special episode of the West Wing President Bartlett decides that his daughter must die to save him from hypocrisy

"Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently."

'good evening. tonight on Spot the Difference, we interview two us men: one was brought to trial on felony charges solely for how he filled out his gun form, and the other was charged criminally for tax evasion in the face of his serious addictions, despite having paid what was owed with interest. we believe we can SPOT THE DIFFERENCE-- can you?'
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/1ece/live/74f2e7b0-b090-11ef-93a6-9fd2d3586a96.jpg.webp

Hunter looks more addled than his dad there.

Keyes, I know you jest, but perhaps demanding more integrity from our elected leaders is a good thing, not something to make fun of— call me crazy.

my conservative dad was having like a minor internal meltdown at the hunter news last night, i could tell. therefore it’s good

yeah this is one of those news items that is going to make most people shrug but completely enrage the Fox News audience

as sharing is caring, enragement is engagement

non of the fulminating against this pardon from republicans will make a whit of difference when it comes time for trump to pardon literally everyone he knows including himself, but the feelings that wash over us all when it happens will be quite something

He pardoned the father-in-law whom he just nominated to serve as ambassador to France.

If only Charlie Guiteau could come back to life to fight him for it